Hey, Employees Are Users Too!

At this event delegates will explore UX within the work place and the steps that need to be taken to bring this in line with the customers' experience when at home. How can we ensure a better experience for future workers?

About the event

No-one would argue that good UX isn't essential for customer on-boarding and retention in the B2C space. However, enterprise software has some catching up to do. We put up with sincerely horrible and unusable UIs when we're at work. Yet most employees are regular consumers too, and the difference of experience between work and home is more and more difficult to justify, from the users’ perspective.

Besides satisfaction, benefits for better UX include efficiency, so why is enterprise software still so poor in 2018? One often stated reason is security, but every piece of software needs to be secure - this isn't specific to enterprise. Is it because the problems are more complex in industry, and more difficult to design? Is it because software started to be used in the enterprise a long time ago, and there is a lot of legacy? Is it because the people in charge of buying enterprise software are not the actual users? Or, perhaps, designers are not excited about designing for enterprise? It doesn't matter. With greater mobility, comes the need for seamless experience.

Why are many tools employees have to use so incredibly clunky? No company can function without providing tools to their employees for various tasks such as claiming expenses, booking travel, time recording, etc. but the majority of these are difficult to use. There certainly seems to be a big gap between software people use privately as well as professionally.

This UX workshop will explore why this is the case. We'll kick off the discussion with a number of presentations but the majority of time will be spent in a hands-on workshop where delegates explore and identify needs and pain points through a technique called 'Experience Mapping', followed by a creative 'solutions thinking' session. All results will not only be shared on the day but also published as a CW blog. With this session, we'll attempt to discover the reasons for such dichotomy, the steps that are taken to fix it, and debate the way we need to design for future workers.

Agenda

The information supplied below may be subject to change before the
event.

15:30

Registration and networking with refreshments

16:00

Introduction to CW, Simon Mead, CEO, CW (Cambridge Wireless)

16:05

Introduction to the User Experience SIG

Marine Barbaroux, UX Designer, Arm

16:10

Welcome from event sponsor, Cambridge Consultants

Alex Reynish, Group Lead of Experience Design and Development, Cambridge Consultants

16:20

‘Windows 95 is dead. Why does most enterprise software belong in the 90s?’

Marine Barbaroux, UX Designer, Arm

When software was first created for professional use, we welcomed it into our homes to solve personal needs, and it benefited from a lot of competition… Now we’re all super connected and remote working is more desirable, perhaps it’s time for enterprise software to relearn from its B2C young brother? As an introduction to the session, we will have a quick historical review of software use in enterprise and observe its current state. How good is it, and for whom? How usable? How efficient? How does it compare with the experience most of us have at home, and how does it impact our working life?

16:45

Q & A

16:50

‘Intranets - Mobile Reboot’

Tuukka Ylälahti, Founder, Mesensei

Corporate intranets are designed for data security, but they tend to be awkward to use and often see less traction in internal use than informal / public channels such as Facebook/LinkedIn, Slack etc. Could transition to mobile solutions give corporate intranets a restart and deliver data security combined with superior user experience?

17:15

‘Enterprise UX: A practitioner's view’

Andy Morris, Head of Product Design, Onshape Inc

Enterprise applications are ripe for disruption. Each new wave of computing increases power, reduces cost, improves accessibility and usability. There are huge opportunities for organisations that can leverage this technology with an awesome user experience. As a Product Designer working on complex web applications, I will share approaches that have been effective at startups and established businesses to improve outcomes for Enterprise applications.

17:50

Workshop session

Facilitated by Leo Poll, Akendi UK and Marine Barbaroux, Arm

Why are many tools employees have to use so incredibly clunky? No company can function without providing tools to their employees for various tasks such as claiming expenses, booking travel, time recording, etc. but the majority of these are difficult to use. There seems to be a big gap between the software people use privately and professionally and this UX workshop will explore why this is the case. We'll kick off the discussion with a number of inspiring speakers, followed by a hands-on workshop where delegates explore and identify needs and pain points through a technique called 'Experience Mapping' followed by a creative 'solutions thinking' session. All results will not only be shared on the day but also published as a CW blog.

19:15

Close

Speakers

Marine is a digital product and service designer in Cambridge and has been in and around the design field for more than 20 years. With an education in product design and graphic art, she joined the world of software and now applies her skills to ensure great user experiences at Cambridge Consultants. She's designed a number of products and managed UX teams both in France and in the UK, mentored at Springboard (now TechStar London), and recruited a fair number of whatever-the-flavour-of-the-month-is-UX-o-tronologists you can think of... For her, design is about problem-solving more than anything. The role of a designer is to come up with novel concepts where required, but also make sure those are realistic and achievable. Cooperation is key. In her spare time, she works with acrylics, Photoshop and Illustrator to keep the creative juices flowing!

Geoff has worked as a business consultant in the design industry for over 10 years. In that time he has worked with some of the world's most famous and successful designers, where his role was to help designers, companies and brands to try and maximise the commercial effectiveness of design. His experience covers every populated continent and a diverse range of sectors, including developing a mobile petrol retail station, an interior design system for VIP aircraft, hydrogen powered vehicles, packaging strategies for FMCG brands and innovation programmes utilising Asian sourcing. It is this breadth of experience that he values most. Common across all of his clients and projects is the desire to create truly unique experiences that occupy a space in peoples' hearts and minds.

Andy Morris is Head of Product Design at Onshape Inc, creators of cloud based SaaS design applications for engineering companies. For over 15 years he has been designing simple interactions for complex applications, to make it easier for Enterprises to control and consume design data.

Technically everything is possible, making it work for people is where the real challenges are. Addressing these challenges from an end-user perspective in a way that makes business sense is what drives Leo. With more than 20 years of experience in Innovation driven Experience Research and Design he is able to bring an ability of strong lateral thinking combined with broad domain knowledge of applications/markets and technical enablers. Previous to his role at Akendi, Leo worked for the mobile phone division of Philips in Le Mans, France, managed numerous international projects whilst employed by Philips Electronics UK, was a member of the global 'Connectivity Programme' board of Philips Research, (Co-)founded Ryppel Ltd, Eversfield Innovation Ltd, Galileo Software Adviesbureau v.o.f.

In 1997 Alex discovered an online community called GeoCities which allowed people all over the world to connect through building web pages. Since then he's built applications across a range of industries from FinTech to online learning for GCSE students. He now leads a team of designers and engineers at Cambridge Consultants helping clients to deliver digital services. Think connected therapeutic devices accelerating patient recovery. Intelligent heating systems to create more discerning energy consumers. Augmented Reality applications for STEM outreach.

SIG Champions

Marine is a digital product and service designer in Cambridge and has been in and around the design field for more than 20 years. With an education in product design and graphic art, she joined the world of software and now applies her skills to ensure great user experiences at Cambridge Consultants. She's designed a number of products and managed UX teams both in France and in the UK, mentored at Springboard (now TechStar London), and recruited a fair number of whatever-the-flavour-of-the-month-is-UX-o-tronologists you can think of... For her, design is about problem-solving more than anything. The role of a designer is to come up with novel concepts where required, but also make sure those are realistic and achievable. Cooperation is key. In her spare time, she works with acrylics, Photoshop and Illustrator to keep the creative juices flowing!

Amdeo specialises in the development and exploitation of high tech innovations. Amdeo principal, Allan MacLean, has worked in research and management roles at the leading edge of Information and Communication Technologies for over 25 years. He was a founder member of Xerox's European Research Centre in the 80's and was a major contributor to building it into one of the world's leading centres of expertise in the user centred design of innovative technologies. In 2002, he co-founded Image Semantics, which he helped lead to become a global provider of innovative mobile applications and services. Allan has frequently advised on funding programmes in the UK, Europe and North America to help improve the fit between technologies and human needs and improve the exploitation of government funded research.

Geoff has worked as a business consultant in the design industry for over 10 years. In that time he has worked with some of the world's most famous and successful designers, where his role was to help designers, companies and brands to try and maximise the commercial effectiveness of design. His experience covers every populated continent and a diverse range of sectors, including developing a mobile petrol retail station, an interior design system for VIP aircraft, hydrogen powered vehicles, packaging strategies for FMCG brands and innovation programmes utilising Asian sourcing. It is this breadth of experience that he values most. Common across all of his clients and projects is the desire to create truly unique experiences that occupy a space in peoples' hearts and minds.

Technically everything is possible, making it work for people is where the real challenges are. Addressing these challenges from an end-user perspective in a way that makes business sense is what drives Leo. With more than 20 years of experience in Innovation driven Experience Research and Design he is able to bring an ability of strong lateral thinking combined with broad domain knowledge of applications/markets and technical enablers. Previous to his role at Akendi, Leo worked for the mobile phone division of Philips in Le Mans, France, managed numerous international projects whilst employed by Philips Electronics UK, was a member of the global 'Connectivity Programme' board of Philips Research, (Co-)founded Ryppel Ltd, Eversfield Innovation Ltd, Galileo Software Adviesbureau v.o.f.

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